HEREDITY
"Man is composed of characters derived from pre-existing germ-cells,
over which he has no control. Be they good, bad, or indifferent, these
factors are his from his ancestry; the possession of them is to him a
matter of neither blame nor praise, but of necessity. They are
inevitable."--Leighton.
The body is composed of myriads of cells of _protoplasm_, in each of which,
is a _nucleus_ which contains the factors of the hereditary nature of the
cell. In growth, the nucleus splits in half, a wall grows between and each
new cell has half the original factors,
Female _ovum_ and male _sperm_ (the cells concerned with reproduction)
divide, thus losing half their factors, and when brought together by sexual
intercourse form a _germ-cell_ having an equal number of factors from
mother and father.
How these factors are mingled--whether shuffled like two packs of cards, or
mixed like two paints--we do not know. If two opposite factors are brought
together, one must lie dormant. The offspring may be male or female, tall
or short; it cannot be both, nor will there be a mixture. _This rule only
applies to clearly defined factors._
We are _made by_ the _germ-plasm_ handed down to us by our ancestors; in
turn we pass it on to our children, _unaltered_, but mixed with our
partner's plasm.
"The Dead dominate the Living" for our physical and mental inheritance is a
mosaic made by our ancestors.
Variations which may or may not be inheritable do arise spontaneously, we
know not how, and by variations all living things evolve.
A child resembles his parents more than strangers, not because they made
cells "after their own image" but because both he and they got their
factors from the same source.
Man's physical and mental, and the _basis_ of his moral, qualities depend
entirely on the types of ancestral plasm combined in marriage. Man may
control his environment; his heritage is immutable. To suppress an
undesirable trait the germ-cell must unite with one that has never shown
it--one from a sound stock. An unsuitable mating in a later generation,
however, may bring it out again (for factors are indestructible), and the
individual showing it will have "reverted to ancestral type".
To give an instance: Does the son of a drunkard inherit a tendency to
drink? No! The father is alcoholic because he lacks control, consequent
upon the factors which make for control having been absent from his
germ-plasm. He passes on this lack; if the mother does the same, the defect
occurs--in a worse form--in the son. If the mother gives a control factor,
the son may be unstable or _apparently_ stable, this depending entirely on
chance, but if the mother's plasm contains a _strong_ control-factor, the
defect will lie dormant in her son, who will have self-control, though if
he marries the wrong woman he will have weak-willed children.
If the son becomes a toper, therefore, it is because he, like his father
before him, was born with a defect--weak control--which might have made of
him a drug-fiend, a tobacco-slave, a rake, or a criminal; in his home drink
would naturally be the temptation nearest to hand, and he would show his
lack of control in drunkenness.
The way a lily-seed is treated makes a vast difference to the plant which
arises. If sown in poor soil, and neglected, a dwarf, sickly plant will
result; if sown in rich soil, and given every care that enthusiasm, money
and skill can suggest or procure, the result will be magnificent.
So with man. A well-nourished mother, free from care and disease, may have
a finer child than a half-starved woman, crushed by worry and work, but
neither starvation nor nourishment alter the inborn character of the child.
The _body-cells_ are greatly changed by disease, poison, injury, and
overwork, but these changes are not passed on, and despite the influence of
disease from time immemorial, the _germ-cell_ produces the same man as in
ancient days. Without this fixity of character, this "continuity of the
germ-plasm", "man" would cease to be, for the descendants of changeable
cells would be of infinite variety, having fixity of neither form nor
character.
Epilepsy, hysteria and neurasthenia are all outward signs of defect in the
germ-plasm, and so they (or a predisposition to them) can be passed on, and
inherited.
If a man shows a certain character, his plasm, had, and has, the causative
factor. He may have received it from _both_ his parents, when it will be
_strong_, or from one only, when it will be _normal_. If he have it not, it
is absent. The same applies to the plasm of the woman he mates, so there
are six possible combinations, with results according to "Mendel's Law."
_All_ the children will not inherit a taint unless _both_ parents possess
it, but, however strong one parent be, if the other is tainted, _none_ of
the children can be absolutely clean, but will show the taint, weak,
strong, or dormant. This means that neuropathy will recur--and that it has
previously occurred--in the same family, unless there be continual mating
into sound stocks. If there is continual mating into bad stocks, it will
recur frequently and in severe forms. All intermediate stages may occur,
depending entirely on the qualities of the combining stocks.
From this we shall expect, in the same stock, signs of neuropathic taint
other than the three diseases dealt with here, and these we get; for
alcoholism, criminality, chorea, deformities, insanity and other brain
diseases, are not infrequent among the relatives of a neuropath, showing
that the family germ-plasm is unsound.
Epilepsy, one symptom of taint, is more or less interchangeable with other
defects; the taint, as a whole, is an inheritable unit whose inheritance
will appear as any one of many defects. This is shown by the fact that very
few epileptics have an epileptic parent. Starr's analysis of 700 cases of
epilepsy emphasizes this point.
Epilepsy in a parent 6
Epilepsy in a near relative 136
Alcoholism in a parent 120
Nervous Diseases in family 118
Rheumatism and Tuberculosis 184
Combinations of above diseases 142
As medicine and surgery cannot add or delete plasmic factors, the only way
to stamp out neuropathy in severe forms would be to sterilize victims by
X-rays. This would be painless, would protect the race and not interfere
with personal or even with sexual liberty. In fifty years such diseases
would be almost extinct, and those arising from accident or the chance
union of dormant factors in apparently normal people could easily be dealt
with.
There are 100,000 epileptics in Great Britain, and as _all_ their children
carry a taint which tends to reappear as epilepsy in a later generation
_the number of epileptics doubles every forty years_. We protect these
unfortunates against others; why not posterity against them?
Neuropaths must pass on _some_ defect; therefore, though victims may marry,
_no neuropath has a right to have children_.
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